Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade

Declaration of UN Human Rights Committee is open intervention in finish of election campaign

April 6, 2018 6:20 PM

“No matter how much pressure the UN Human Rights Committee exerts on us, we will not take a single migrant in”, the Minister of Foreign Affairs and Trade said in an interview which he gave the public service television news channel M1 on Friday.

Péter Szijjártó said the fact that the UN Human Rights Committee adopted “a grossly biased declaration against Hungary” amounts to an attempt of open intervention in Hungarian internal affairs in the finish of the election campaign. Regarding the report, he said it is as if it had been written, from start to finish, by George Soros, “it bears an uncanny resemblance to the Soros plan”.

The Foreign Minister said it is absurd that the Committee wants us to accept prohibited border-crossing and border violation as fundamental human rights, and to put up and to provide for people who arrived in Hungary by crossing the border illegally, thereby breaching Hungarian sovereignty. He said the UN Human Rights Committee wants “us to accept that we must provide for people arriving in our country illegally” the same way as for Hungarian taxpayers.

Mr Szijjártó highlighted “No matter how much pressure the UN Human Rights Committee exerts on us, we will not take a single migrant in”. The fence will remain in place, as will our stringent immigration policy. “Illegal immigrants cannot come to Hungary”, and also in the future “we will treat” border violation as one of the gravest possible criminal offences committed against the country’s sovereignty, and “will sanction it accordingly”, he stated.

He said Hungary will keep on fighting as long as it has a government which wishes to engage in this fight, rather than give it up. The people will decide on 8 April whether Hungary will continue to have an anti-immigration government or will have a pro-immigration government, he said regarding the stakes of the parliamentary elections.

On Thursday the UN Human Rights Committee called upon Hungary to take action against hate speech targeting minorities, including Roma and Muslims. The Committee also called upon Hungary to repeal the legislation which allows the police to expel illegal border-crossers from the country without the submission of an asylum request. Additionally, the committee is urging the government to reject the so-called Stop Soros bill which would authorise the Interior Minister to ban non-governmental organisations helping migrants with reference to national security risks.